This morning, the White House offered to put the GOP’s health insurance reform plan online alongside their own plan in preparation for Thursday’s bipartisan summit.
Problem is: there isn’t one.
Via Dan Pfeiffer at the White House blog:
What you can’t do just yet is read about the Republicans’ consensus plan – because so far they haven’t announced what proposal they’ll be bringing to the table. To be sure, there are many Republicans who share the President’s conviction that we need to act on reform, and there are several pieces of Republican health care legislation out there. Previously we were told this was the House Republican bill. Is it still? We look forward to hearing whether this the proposal they’ll bring. The Senate Republicans have yet to post any kind of plan, so we continue to await word from them. As of right now, the American people still don’t know which one Congressional Republicans support and which one they want to present to the public on Thursday.[…]
As we said today, we’ll be happy to post the Republican plan on our website once they indicate to us which one we should post. We hope they won’t pass up this opportunity to make their case to the American people.
I am thrilled that the White House is being so out in front on calling the GOPosaurs on their hypocrisy and stalling and obstruction. The GOP bill they link to insures only an additional 3 million Americans out of the 40-50 million that are currently without health insurance. Brian Beutler at Talking Points Memo put it this way in November when the GOP plan was released:
Earlier this week, a spokesman for House Minority Leader John Boehner made a prediction. The Republican health care plan, he said, “will cover millions more Americans” than the Democrats’ plan. Bold. But here’s what the experts say:By 2019, CBO and JCT estimate, the number of nonelderly people without health insurance would be reduced by about 3 million relative to current law, leaving about 52 million nonelderly residents uninsured. The share of legal nonelderly residents with insurance coverage in 2019 would be about 83 percent, roughly in line with the current share.
Oops.
Reform!
So, what will the GOP bring to Thursday’s meeting? Will it be more grandstanding by Pence and Boehner? If so, I hope they are ready to face the scorn of the electorate because, unless I miss my guess, any attempts to shut down the process in order to make red meat-filled speeches for their constituents will be quickly smacked down. President Obama and his staff are prepared, they are on-message of late and they know the eyes of the country will be focused on this meeting. They’ve clearly spelled out which parts of the bill are concessions to the Republicans.
So far all we have from the GOP are remarks by Cantor and Boehner and McConnell saying that unless the current legislative efforts are completely scrapped and the entire icky process is begun anew, their answer is NO! All of their demands for transparency and putting plans online for a period of time have been met. Now it’s time for them to put up or shut up.
Or BE shut up.
My money’s on the latter.
UPDATE: Perusing the White House site, I see that they kinda sorta do link to the GOP’s “plans”. Under the heading “Read more about House and Senate ideas from both parties on their websites”, when you click the link labeled “Senate Republicans”, it takes you HERE. On that site is a lot of nice sounding language about what they want to accomplish but no plan whatsoever.
Republican Health Care Plans:
- Focus on health coverage for all 300 million Americans, including the 47 million uninsured.
- Are health care plans you can afford.
- Allow you and your doctor to make your health care decisions, not some Washington bureaucrat.
- Emphasize prevention and wellness.
- Give low-income Americans the same opportunities and choices that most Americans already have.
- Don’t make it harder for American businesses to compete in the world marketplace by adding to their costs.
- Won’t saddle your children and grandchildren with trillions of dollars of debt.
- Should be enacted at a pace that lets us do it right.
Sounds good. But where’s the plan???!
Also, much of the GOP Senate site is devoted to bashing Democrats. Such good politicians they are.
When you click the link labeled “House Republicans”, it takes you to the page for the GOP bill that only covers an additional 3 million Americans, less than a tenth of those currently without coverage.
I’m calling this a pwnage. On the White House website. Snap!
UPDATE 2: I have taken the liberty of summarizing the GOP health care plans from both
the House and Senate Republicans and putting it up on the internets. It is HERE.
UPDATE 3: Apparently the plan that insures only an extra 3 million Americans IS the GOP plan. According to John Boehner:
A spokesman for House Minority Leader John Boehner today ridiculed President Obama’s health care proposal because it’s too short.“The White House’s ‘plan’ consists of an 11-page outline, which has not been scored by the Congressional Budget Office or posted online as legislative text. So they want to reorganize one-sixth of the United States’ economy with a document shorter than a comic book, and they’re complaining that they can’t find our plan on their own website? C’mon,” said the spokesman, Michael Steel, in an email to reporters.
Okay, first of all: BECAUSE IT’S TOO SHORT???! Dude, you’re the same idiot who was complaining the House bill was too LONG just a few months ago. Please, tell us, share with all of us, what is the “juuuu-uuuust right” length of a bill that will make you happy. Please. Obviously somewhere between 11 pages and 2,000 pages. Just give us a range even. Something.
Or, ya know, we’ll think you’re an obstructionist hypocrite or something.
Second of all: your bill only covers an additional 3 million uninsured Americans. How is that better? One-Word Answer ManTM says: s’not.
UPDATE 4: more evidence that the GOPosaurs are going to go with their plan that only insures an additional 3 million uninsured Americans (via an email from Lisa — THANKS!):
House Republicans’ healthcare bill will form the basis of the GOP’s proposals at the White House summit Thursday, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Tuesday.Boehner said that House and Senate Republicans hadn’t yet decided on whether to submit a single healthcare plan, which the White House pressed the GOP to submit ahead of the bipartisan meeting this week.
“I don’t know that that decision has been made,” Boehner said of whether Republicans would offer a single plan. “Many of the ideas outlined in the Republican proposal…will clearly make up the basis for our ideas about how to make our current system work better.”
Better = less Americans with health insurance than under the White House plan.
Better = GOP fail
I’m just sayin’…
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